Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Cermaq’s land-based lead to take up academic role – The Fish Site

He will teach bachelor and master students and eventually also supervise doctoral students. This will also involve developing courses on continuing education in aquaculture technology, especially with a focus on RAS/post-smolt. The courses will be open to all fish farming companies and others in the region. The long-term goal is also to initiate various research collaborations with external actors.

We are very pleased to have Bendik Fyhn Terjesen on the team in a professor II position, said Dean Mette Srensen in a press release.

Terjesen is a very experienced aquaculture scientist with a broad experience within recirculation and postsmolt production. We want to use his knowledge and experience towards existing and new courses aimed at both campus students and in continuing and further education courses aimed at the aquaculture industry. We also hope that the collaboration will contribute to the development of new knowledge through joint research projects with the aquaculture industry, added Srensen.

Terjesen has an extensive research career focusing on fish physiology and aquaculture technology and he made his first experiments in water recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) in 1993 at Wageningen University. He led the construction of the Nofima Center for Recirculation in Aquaculture and the start-up of CtrlAQUA, a center for research-based innovation in aquaculture in closed systems, before joining Cermaq.

Aquaculture is an increasingly important source of safe, nutritious, and sustainable seafood for people worldwide. Globally, aquaculture production must double by 2030 to keep pace with demand. These increases in demand for aquaculture products, food security considerations, and job creation have generated an increased need for skilled workers.

Discover how you can be part of this rapidly expanding industry.

This is a recognition of Bendik as one of the persons with most technology expertise in the industry. Sharing knowledge through collaboration with Nord University is completely in line with Cermaq's knowledge- and research-based approach. We are confident that this will be a good cooperation for both parties and congratulate Terjesen on his appointment," said Erlend Reiten, chief transformation officer at Cermaq Group.

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Cermaq's land-based lead to take up academic role - The Fish Site

Physiology

Faculty Highlights: Recent Awards and Grants – Drexel University

Professors across Drexel University continued to advance scholarly research and make significant academic and professional contributions. This update offers a snapshot of activity from the last term, courtesy of the Office of the Provost.

Sponsored Research

Christopher MacLellan, PhD, assistant professor in the College of Computing & Informatics, received two research grants from the Army Research Laboratory as part of the Army Strengthening Teamwork for Robust Operations in Novel Groups program. MacLellan and Drexel will serve as PI for the project Human-Guided ML for Futuristic Human-Machine Teaming ($1.4 million from February 2022 to January 2025), in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His second funded project, titled The Co-evolution of Human-AI Adaptation, will be conducted in collaboration with University of California San Diego (PI) and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Laura N. Gitlin, PhD, dean and Distinguished University Professor, and Rose Ann DiMaria-Ghalili, PhD, senior associate dean for research and professor of nursing, from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, received $84,000 from Temple University for Vascular Contributions to Mechanisms and Biomarkers of Alzheimers Disease.

Joke Bradt, PhD, professor of creative arts therapies in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, received $95,000 from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for Advancement of Military Media for Group Music Therapy for Chronic Pain Management in Service Members with Co-Morbid Chronic Pain and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Ebony White, PhD, assistant clinical professor of counseling and family therapy in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, received $2,400 from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision for Implementing Social Justice Strategies Across Core Curriculum in CACREP Programs.

Justine Sefcik, PhD, assistant professor of graduate nursing in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, received $154,000 from the National Institutes of Health for A Person-Centered Environmental and Sensory Intervention for Nursing Home Residents with Dementia who Exhibit Persistent Vocalizations.

Ezra Wood, PhD, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, received a $174,000 grant from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to study and characterize ozone formation in New York City.

College of Arts and Sciences Naomi Goldstein, PhD, professor of psychological and brain sciences; Amanda NeMoyer, JD, PhD, assistant research professor of psychological and brain sciences; and Zoe Zhang, PhD, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, received a grant from the United Way for their evaluation of a new city-wide initiative to expunge criminal records of juveniles and adults. They received $422,674 for year one of what is anticipated to be five-year grant totaling approximately $1.9 million.

Andria Mortensen, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and physiology in the College of Medicine, was awarded a one-year, $510,709 grant from the National Institutes of Health for The Mechanism of Allosteric Modulation of Glutamate Transporters.

Olimpia Meucci, MD, PhD, professor and chair of pharmacology and physiology in the College of Medicine, received a one-year, $375,506 grant from the National Institutes of Health for Effects of Opiates on Neurons and their Impact on HIV Neuropathology.

The Urban Health Collaborative (UHC) at the Dornsife School of Public Health was awarded a $250,000Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantto study the impacts of paid maternity and paternity leave policies on health outcomes in Latin America and their potential for the United States. The project will be led byAna Ortigoza, MD, PhD, senior research scientist II at the UHC, andAna V. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health, Dana and David Dornsife Dean and Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology, and director of the UHC.

The Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design will serve as a research collaborator withPAHumanitieson their project to map, network and celebrate the ecosystem ofhumanitiespractice in Pennsylvania. This research will culminate with a report and dialogue around the findings to highlight how thehumanitiesare used across multiple sectors to create the building blocks for belonging and civic muscle to foster an equitable, thriving future forPAcommunities. Westphal will receive $60,000 for this work, which involves Westphal Dean Jason Schupbach; Andrew Zitcer, PhD, associate professor and program director of urban strategy; and Julie Goodman, department head of Arts & Entertainment Enterprise and associate professor of arts administration and museum leadership.

Steven Kurtz, PhD, research professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems and director of the Implant Research Center, received a five-year, $500,000 Stryker Orthopedics contract renewal for the project titled, Analysis of Retrieved Alternative Bearings for Total Joint Replacement. He also received a one-year $131,000 NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences-Small Business Technology Transfer (NIGMS-STTR) grant for the project titled, 3D Printed Silicon Nitride Porous PEEK Composite Spinal Cages for Anti-Infection.

Gail Rosen, PhD, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant for Learning Multi-scale Sequence Features for Predicting Gene to Microbiome Function.

Joshua Lequieu, PhD, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering in the College of Engineering, received a grant from the Charles E. Kauffman Foundation, which supports innovative and interdisciplinary scientific research at Pennsylvania universities.

Major Gifts, Honors & Recognition

Rose Ann DiMaria-Ghalili, PhD, received the Distinguished Educator in Gerontological Nursing designation from the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence.

Susan Bell, PhD, professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, won the 2022 Reeder Award from the American Sociology Associations Medical Sociology Section. The Reeder Award is given annually for distinguished contributions to medical sociology and recognizes scholarly contributions, especially a body of work displaying an extended trajectory of productivity that has contributed to theory and research in medical sociology; teaching; mentoring; and training, as well as service to the medical sociology community broadly defined.

Asta Zelenkauskaite, PhD, associate professor of communication in the College of Arts and Sciences, was re-elected co-chair of the Audience Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research and was invited to serve as co-chair of the Communication and Media Division of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.

Barbara Schindler, MD, vice dean emerita of educational and academic affairs and professor of psychiatry and pediatrics in the College of Medicine, received the 2021 Liaison Committee on Medical Education Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes individuals whose efforts make the LCME peer review process possible and who have had a direct impact on the excellence of medical education in the United States.

The Kline School of Laws Lisa Tucker, JD, associate professor of law, and Anil Kalhan, JD, professor of law, were elected as members of the American Law Institute, which is the leading U.S. organization using scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law.

Wendy Greene, JD, professor of law in the Kline School of Law, won the Association of American Law Schools Deborah L. Rhode Award for her work fighting to end discrimination against natural hair and protective hairstyles.

Richard Frankel, associate dean of experiential learning, director of the civil litigation and dispute resolution program and professor of law in the Kline School of Law, won the Pound Civil Justice Institutes 2022 Civil Justice Scholarship Award for his article, Corporate Hostility to Arbitration, published in the Seton Hall Law Review in 2020.

Joseph Martin, PhD, professor emeritus in the College of Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2022 Hall of Fame award from the Delaware Valley Engineers Week Council. This award recognizes his engineering achievements, which have had a long-lasting impact on engineering and the public. Undergraduate civil engineering student Emma Youngs, who is the president of Drexels American Society of Civil Engineers, nominated Martin for this honor because of his commitment to shaping the minds of future engineers.

Jrn Venderbos, PhD, assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics and the College of Engineerings Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has received an NSF CAREER award from the Condensed Matter and Materials Theory program in the NSFs Division of Materials Research. His project titled CAREER: Advancing the Many-body Band Inversion Paradigm for Correlated Quantum Materials will allow his group to lay the theoretical groundwork for better understanding the impacts of strong electronic correlations in materials with band inversion.

Kristine A. Mulhorn, PhD, chair of the Health Administration Department and teaching professor in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, has been placed on the roster as a Fulbright Specialist. Her interest is to enhance the links between an international university with the Health Administration Department to enhance global health management education and increase competitiveness of Drexels various programs.

Mark Schafer, PhD, research professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Scienceand Health Systems, was elected to the 2022 Class of theAmerican Institute forMedical and Biological Engineering.

Robert Thayer Sataloff, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Otolaryngology in the College of Medicine, was recognized by the American Academy of Teachers of Singing (AATS) with a 2022 AATS Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the great contributions made to singers, teachers of singing, and the voice community at large.

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Faculty Highlights: Recent Awards and Grants - Drexel University

Physiology

Quality of Fat Input Determines Output of Kidney and Cardiac Health and Repair, says USF Health Study – Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology

April 19, 2022 New breakthrough research by a University of South Florida lab team describing how certain fats can harm or repair the heart after injury has been accepted by a journal of the American Physiological Society.

A manuscript by Ganesh Halade, PhD, an associate professor of cardiovascular sciences at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and a researcher in the USF Health Heart Institute, appears in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, published March 25.

Dr. Halades research article is titled Metabolic Transformation of Fat in Obesity Determines the Inflammation Resolving Capacity of Splenocardiac and Cardiorenal Networks in Heart Failure.

A key message of the manuscript is how a certain type of healthy fat known as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) which is present in Omega-3 fish oil, as found in salmon and tuna works in tandem with enzymes from the spleen to clear the inflammation in a damaged heart. The spleen plays an important role because it sends immune cells with bags of healthy fat that operates cardiac repair after major injury such as a heart attack.

So the fat intake needs to be of optimal quality and used by the right enzyme of immune cells, Halade said. This is all about cardiac repair and the inflammation clearing molecules (resolution mediators) involved in that repair. Its essential to the resolution process.

Another key message is more about prevention and the genesis of cardiovascular disease: How a chronic and surplus dietary intake of safflower oil (SO, omega-6) can lead to residual inflammation of spleen, kidney, heart, and biosynthesis of pro-inflammatory mediators after an ischemic event. SO is a type of fat commonly used in processed and fast foods that drives chronic inflammation.

The big question for most people is whether a fat is good or bad, or is omega-3 helpful for heart health? Halade said. Everyone is dealing with this question. Were thinking beyond that by looking at how fat is used in the body after a heart attack and in what forms.

All fats are not created equal, he added, and despite the extensive literature, the effect of fat intake is the most debated question in obesity, cardiovascular, and cardiorenal research.

In his research, Halade and his team put 100 mice on a 12-week diet of processed (SO) foods to develop residual inflammation and then 50 mice randomized on a primarily DHA-enriched diet for next eight weeks before subjecting to ischemic surgery in mice.

The team made sure both diets had same quantity of calorie per gram of diet. The surplus and chronic intake of SO increased inflammation along with a dysfunctional cardiorenal network. In contrast, DHA increased survival following such heart damage (heart attack).

A result of the study was that the alignment of immune cell enzymes from the spleen and DHA fats are essential to cardiac repair. These so-called resolution mediators (a family of specialized pro-resolving mediators) is the bodys natural defense process without a negative impact on the bodys physiological response, Halade said.

Our next step is to determine the enzymatic machinery or immune responsive enzymes that biosynthesize resolution mediators after ischemic (decreased blood flow commonly called a heart attack) event, Dr. Halade said.

Part of Halades research focuses on how unresolved chronic inflammation and immune responsive metabolic dysregulation contributes to ischemic and non-ischemic heart failure. He is involved in studies of heart failure etiology with an integrative approach focusing on splenic leukocytes and heart, as well as the measurement of inflammatory mediators that impair cardiac repair and resolving lipid mediators that facilitate cardiac repair after a heart attack.

Click here for a related story on Dr. Halades heart research at USF.

Halade hopes his latest work can shed new light on controlling chronic inflammation and treating heart failure a progressively debilitating condition in which weakened or stiff heart muscle cannot pump enough blood to meet the bodys demand for nutrients and oxygen.

It has become a growing public health problem, fueled in part by an aging population, poor diet and obesity epidemic. About 6.2 million adults in the U.S. suffer heart failure, and nearly have died within five years of diagnosis,according to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The American Physiological Society (APS), which publishes the journal, is a nonprofit devoted to fostering education, scientific research, and dissemination of information in the physiological sciences.

The editors commend you on your outstanding contribution to the journal, the accepting team wrote to Halade. We would like to thank you for contributing this novel and important article.

The USF Health study was supported by grants from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH, formerly known as National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; (NCCAM), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

For the successful completion of these findings, Halade and team member Dr. Vasundhara Kain from USF collaborated with two other researchers: Dr. Merry Lindsey, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, Center for Heart and Vascular Research, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha; and Dr. Xavier De La Rosa, Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury, Department of Anesthesiology, Harvard Medical School.

For more information:https://www.usf.edu/

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Quality of Fat Input Determines Output of Kidney and Cardiac Health and Repair, says USF Health Study - Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology

Physiology

E-News | WVU recognizes three faculty members as Foundation Outstanding Teachers for 2022 – WVU ENews

Each spring, West Virginia University recognizes selected faculty members for their exceptional and innovative teaching. This year, the 2022 WVU Foundation Awards for Outstanding Teaching honors three faculty members:

Lisa Ingram, a tenured extension assistant professor in 4-H Youth Development with WVU Extension.

Aimee Moorewood, professor in the College of Education and Human Services Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Literacy Studies.

Mark Paternostro, professor, teaching scientist and associate chair for education in the School of Medicines Department of Physiology and Pharmacology.

Each year, the University recognizes faculty members for their exceptional teaching efforts, both within the University and across our communities, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryanne Reed said. This years three honorees are a prime example of the talented and dedicated educators we have at WVU. This prestigious award honors their commitment to their students and to the art and science of teaching."

Ingram is recognized for her responsiveness to community concerns, creative design and extensive dissemination of curriculum to her constituents. For example, in response to a rise in incidents of social media bullying between students, she developed and delivered her cyber-bullying and internet curriculum to 2,180 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and 146 adults in Marshall County. Ingram has also helped design a state-wide curriculum on cyberbullying for K-8th graders and has presented I RESPECT You: Camping Inclusion Activities to 94 camping professionals from 21 states at the American Camping Association National Conference.

She has made innovative modifications to the Catch Your Breath curriculum to address the local rise in youth vaping/juuling, which has been offered to 764 youth teachers, counselors and parents in Marshall and Ohio counties. Ingram presented her Hazards of Vaping Train the Trainer session to 41 West Virginia Extension specialists so that they can likewise offer the training to their constituents. This particular workshop earned a 2021 Communicator Award for media presentation from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, and an information brochure she created on vaping was recognized in 2020 in the educational category.

Morewood is recognized for her long-standing exceptional teaching effectiveness and for creating innovative, meaningful online learning experiences that have lasting impacts on students in the literacy education program at WVU. Morewood started her higher education career at WVU in 2007, and since this time, nearly 100% of the programs graduates she trained passed the required Praxis exam established by the West Virginia Department of Education. WVUs literacy education program was the first fully-online program in the country to have achieved the International Literacy Associations National Recognition with Certificate of Distinction, honoring its rigorous standards and preparation of literacy professionals.

Morewood and her colleagues designed the conceptual model that serves as the foundation for the online literacy education program. The article describing this conceptual model recently won the Elizabeth G. Sturtevant Exemplary Article Award from the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers. The award committee was also impressed by Morewoods seamless integration of her research agenda and service work to support practicing teachers. Morewood has acquired more than $375,000 from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to support West Virginia teachers as they worked to increase their literacy content, pedagogy and curricular knowledge. She has served as the principal investigator and co-PI on these grants, designing and facilitating the projects and teaching courses specifically designed for preschool teachers. In addition to graduate-level reading courses, the grants supported preschool teachers to pursue National Board Teacher Certification. To date, 90% of the grant participants who pursued the certification were successful.

Paternostro is recognized for his outstanding teaching effectiveness, innovative teaching methods, significant curricular contributions and efforts to support his students and colleagues. He is an equally effective and exceptional teacher in small and large classes, as well as in person and asynchronous learning environments with undergraduate, graduate and medical professional students. Paternostros primary focus is student success in learning large amounts of complex materials. The committee noted his efforts to significantly shift courses to virtual delivery over the last two years and multiple pages of student feedback documenting his effective teaching in the virtual space.

Paternostros teaching strategies for creating a content-driven, student-friendly asynchronous learning environment included organized, shorter to-the-point virtual lectures, organized weekly content online, bolded keywords and color-coded cues, hiding passwords within lectures that translated to bonus points and a short video showing students how to organize content using flow charts and concept maps for efficient studying. He also utilized self-assessment exercises, weekly emails with class reminders, personal anecdotes, words of encouragement and an inclusive learning community. Paternostro regularly presents his research on large-group teaching and has received multiple teaching awards and recognitions in his college.

Faculty members must be nominated by their college leadership in order to be eligible for the Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching. Each of the honorees will receive $5,000 in professional development monies from the WVU Foundation.

Established in 1985 by the WVU Foundation, the Outstanding Teaching Awards recognize faculty who are particularly effective and inspiring teachers, as well as those who have established patterns of exceptional innovation in their teaching methods, course and curriculum design and instructional tools.

Read more about these and other awards on the WVU Faculty website.

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E-News | WVU recognizes three faculty members as Foundation Outstanding Teachers for 2022 - WVU ENews

Physiology

Jointly led UNC and USFQ research team receives $1m grant from National Science Foundation to conduct research in Galapagos and help determine how…

UNC researcher Dr. John Bruno and Dr. Margarita Brandt of USFQ are partnering on a three year, one million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to untangle the interactive roles of temperature, nutrient flux, and predation in structuring the Galapagos marine food web.The project is titled Temperature Regulation of Top-Down Control in a PacificUpwelling System and all work will take place at the Galapagos Science Center on San Cristobal, Galapagos. According to Brandt, This new funding will allow us to understand the effect of temperature on the structure and the functioning of the Galapagos marine ecosystems.

Nearlyall the animals that inhabit the ocean are cold-blooded orectothermic, meaning their body temperatures match the temperature of theoceanaround them. This has important consequences for their physiology and morebroadly for the way marine ecosystems function. Whenectotherms warm up, theirmetabolism increases; meaning they breathe more rapidly, and eat more just tostay alive. This is bad news for preysince a warm predator is a hungrypredator. But warming also enables prey species to crawl or swim away morequickly when being hunted.Thus, everything speeds up in warm water. Energyflows more quickly from the sun to seaweeds (via photosynthesis), to the herbivores,thenon up to the large predators at the top of the food chain.

The research team, led by Bruno and Brandt, is testing these ideas in the Galapagos Islands to determine how temperature influences marine ecosystems. Ongoing work in this iconic natural laboratory is helping marine ecologists understand the role of temperature and how this and other ecosystems could function in the future as climate change warms the ocean. Other broader impacts of the project include student training and on-site outreach to tourists and the local community about ocean warming and some of the lesser-known species that inhabit the Galapagos.

Thebroad goal of this project is to understand the effect that temperature has onpatterns and processes in upwelling systems. Our findings will also help us to forecast how global warming will affect this unique ecosystem in the near future, says Bruno. Specifically,the team is measuringthe temperature-dependence of herbivory and carnivory in rocky subtidalhabitats of the Galapagos. They areperforming field experiments to measure therelative and interactive effects of temperature, herbivory, and nutrient fluxon the productivity andstanding biomass of benthic macroalgae. Additionally,they are usingin situpredation assays across spatial and temporaltemperaturegradients and mesocosm experiments to determine the relationshipbetween ocean temperature and predation intensity for predator-preypairingsincluding whelkbarnacle, sea starurchin, and fishsquid.

The team is also looking to have broader impacts in the Galapagos and beyond. The project findings will help scientists andmanagers anticipate how ongoing anthropogenic warming in this region willimpact the ecosystem and theinvaluable resources and services it provides. Theproject outreach also includes training Latino (mainly Ecuadorian) high school,undergraduate, andgraduate students. All will receive research experienceon-site under the guidance of the PI. This training will increase sciencecapacity in the region andemployment opportunities to the many youngGalapagueosinterested in science and natural history byproviding them with skills and experience.

To learn more you can view this comprehensive video about the broader project and also a recent talk about this project by UNC Graduate Student Isabel Silva.

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Jointly led UNC and USFQ research team receives $1m grant from National Science Foundation to conduct research in Galapagos and help determine how...

Physiology

Improving the Ecological Impacts of Light Pollution on Birds – AZoCleantech

Artificial light at night (ALAN) has a negative impact on natural systems worldwide. ALAN causes changes in physiology and behavior in organisms, which can have an impact on populations, communities, and ecosystems. ALANs confusing effect on nocturnal migration is one of the most serious consequences for birds.

Image Credit:Albert Beukhof/Shutterstock.com

During the migratory flight, nocturnally migrating birds are drawn to ALAN on an individual level. During the stopover, populations of nocturnally migratory birds have been shown to be closer to ALAN, and species numbers have been demonstrated to be connected with ALAN sources in urban areas. This article will look at seasonal associations with light pollution trends and their effect onnocturnally migrating bird populations. The research was published in Ecosphere.

Outside of seasonal migration, ALAN can have a negative impact on nocturnally migratory birds. Urban sources of ALAN are related to decreased abundance and fewer nocturnally migratory species at the population level during both breeding and non-breeding seasons. ALAN may affect migratory and resident animals circadian rhythms, behavior, and physiology at the individual level.

ALAN is often treated as a static source of pollution in studies on the ecological impacts of ALAN on migrating birds. ALAN, on the other hand, is a dynamic phenomenon influenced by urban expansion and degradation, as well as technological advancements in lighting.

As a result, documenting the effects of ALAN requires using a whole annual cycle viewpoint. However, the spatial link between nocturnally migratory bird populations seasonal distributions and ALAN trends has not been investigated.

The goal of this research is to document how correlations with ALAN annual trends are defined across the entire annual cycle for nocturnally migrating birds, with the objective of enhancing baseline information on the regions and seasons where mitigation efforts like Lights Out programs would have the greatest impact.

Experts show how populations of nocturnally migratory bird species that nest in North America and travel throughout the Western Hemisphere are linked to ALAN patterns throughout the course of the year.

For the combined period 20052020, researchers compare weekly estimations of relative abundance for 42 nocturnally migrating passerine (NMP) bird species obtained from data from the eBird community science initiative with yearly estimates of ALAN for the period 19922013.

As a result, researchers anticipate that the 42 NMP species will be linked to favorable ALAN trends during the majority of their yearly life cycles.

Their goal is to inform ALAN mitigation efforts and increase the understanding of the ecological implications of various types of environmental pollution for birds and other species by validating these predictions.

Researchers assessed the four seasons of the annual cycle (nonbreeding, spring migration, breeding, and fall migration) for the 42 NMP species using the following technique to support the interpretation seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The great-circle (geodesic) distance between weekly centroids of occurrence weighted by relative abundance for 42 nocturnally migrating passerine bird species. The fitted black line and 95% confidence band are from a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) with species included as a random effect. The vertical polygons demarcate spring migration (15 March17 May) and autumn migration (10 August19 October) as delineated by the inflection points in the fitted GAMM line. Image Credit: La Sorte, et al., 2022

Researchers estimated ALAN by year for the period 19922013 in the Western Hemisphere using the harmonized global nighttime light dataset normalized using stepwise calibration (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. (a) Average artificial light at night (ALAN) and (b) the trend in ALAN during the period 19922013 within the Western Hemisphere. The ALAN data are gridded at a 30-arcsecond spatial resolution (ca. 1km at the equator), and the units are digital numbers (DNs; range = 063). The trend analysis was implemented using ordinary least-squares regression. The data are displayed using a Mollweide equal-area projection. Image Credit: La Sorte, et al., 2022

The 42 NMP species had different associations with ALAN annual trends depending on the week and the species, as depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Weekly associations with trends in artificial light at night (ALAN) during the period 19922013 for 42 nocturnally migrating passerine bird species. Image Credit: La Sorte, et al., 2022

Figure 4 shows three significant clusters comprising 19, 15, and 8 species, respectively, discovered via hierarchical cluster analysis based on a minimum cluster size of eight species.

Figure 4. Dendrogram from a hierarchical cluster analysis of weekly associations with trends in artificial light at night for 42 nocturnally migrating passerine (NMP) bird species. The dendrogram labels are the common name alpha codes for the 42 NMP species. The colored annotations below the dendrogram identify species grouped into three clusters using an adaptive branch pruning technique. Image Credit: La Sorte, et al., 2022

In Figure 5, species in Clusters 1 and 3 were linked with low ALAN levels and positive ALAN trends during the non-breeding season, whereas species in Cluster 2 were associated with somewhat higher ALAN levels and greater positive ALAN trends.

Figure 5. Weekly associations with trends in artificial light at night (ALAN) averaged across 42 nocturnally migrating passerine (NMP) bird species in three clusters (see Figure 4). The size of the circles corresponds to average ALAN. The sample sizes are 19, 15, and eight species, respectively. The color ramp is migration speed (see Figure 1) averaged across the 42 NMP species (blue = slow, green = intermediate, and red = fast). The ALAN units are digital numbers (DNs; range = 063). Image Credit: La Sorte, et al., 2022

Figure 6 shows the seasonal distributions of species in the three groups in the Western Hemisphere.

Figure 6. The seasonal distributions within the Western Hemisphere of 42 nocturnally migrating passerine bird species grouped into three clusters (n = 19, 15, and 8, respectively) based on their weekly associations with trends in artificial light at night (see Figure 3). The maps show the proportion of each season species occur in the grid cells averaged across species in each cluster. The data are displayed using a Mollweide equal-area projection. Image Credit: La Sorte, et al., 2022

This research revealed three distinct clusters of NMP species, each of which had differing connections with ALAN trends based on weekly patterns of relative abundance in the Western Hemisphere. During the breeding season, two clusters of species were found in western and northern North America.

The species in these clusters had moderate levels of ALAN and somewhat negative ALAN trends. Species in these clusters were related to low ALAN levels and positive ALAN trends during the non-breeding season. Scientists discovered the third cluster of species whose positive ALAN trends persisted throughout the yearly cycle, peaking during migration, particularly in the spring.

During migratory and the non-breeding season, NMP species experience high ALAN levels and favorable ALAN trends in Central America, according to study findings. Central Americas unique topography necessitates large-scale migration methods inside the area.

Research data revealed that during the breeding season, southern North America had the greatest ALAN levels and strongest positive ALAN trends, whereas, during the non-breeding season, Central America had the highest ALAN levels and strongest positive ALAN trends.

Changes in lighting technology have traditionally influenced ALAN dynamics. This is now predicated on the shift to LED technology, which has resulted in increased ALAN emissions and changes in ALAN spectral composition in some areas. Depending on the scenario, switching to LED technology can either worsen or mitigate ALANs negative effects on birds.

It would be useful to analyze how LED technology, which has advanced since 2013, is affecting the ALAN patterns observed in this study, as well as the ramifications for the regions nocturnally migratory bird species.

For many species, researchers summarized range-wide relationships with ALAN trends by week across the yearly cycle in this study. Exploring species-specific, local-scale connections with ALAN trends in data-poor locations, on the other hand, might be difficult. Efforts to improve the coverage of eBird data in under-sampled parts of the world might be beneficial in improving the spatial quality of these types of analyses.

Within the Western Hemisphere, research findings pinpoint the places and seasons when ALAN mitigation initiatives are most likely to provide the greatest benefits. These findings also lay the groundwork for further research into the impact of ALAN in recent bird population decreases in North America.

During migration, scientists identified Central America as a significant zone where reversing ALAN trends will likely benefit most individuals of the most species, particularly during spring migration.

Outside of migration, researchers found that reversing ALAN trends would likely have the greatest advantages in southern North America during the breeding season and Central America during the non-breeding season.

Because of urbanization and changes in lighting technology, the problems posed by ALAN for birds and other species will continue to develop, underlining the necessity of documenting ALAN relationships and their consequences at the individual and population levels across locations and seasons.

La Sorte, F.A., Horton, K.G., Johnston, A., Fink, D. and Auer, T. (2022) Seasonal associations with light pollution trends for nocturnally migrating bird populations. Ecosphere, 13(3), p.e3994. Available Online: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.3994.

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Improving the Ecological Impacts of Light Pollution on Birds - AZoCleantech

Physiology

There’s more than one way to grow a baby – UNSW Newsroom

In his 1989 book Wonderful Life, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould famously argued that, if we could replay the tape, life on Earth would evolve to be fundamentally different each time.

Wings and flight evolved differently, and independently, in (1) pterosaurs, (2) bats, and (3) birds. George Romanes

Was he right? Convergent evolution, in which similar features evolve to perform similar functions in distantly related organisms, offers an excellent model in which to run Goulds thought experiment.

One classic example of convergent evolution is the independent evolution of wings and flight in insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats. Another is live birth (or viviparity), which has evolved independently from egg-laying more than 150 times in vertebrates (animals with backbones).

To understand how this happened, we studied the genes involved in pregnancy and live birth in six different live-bearing species. We discovered that, despite broad similarities in the anatomy and physiology involved, each species used a completely different set of genetic tools to give birth to live young.

In nearly all live-bearing vertebrates examined so far, changes to the gestational tissues and biophysical processes during pregnancy appear remarkably similar.

Some common elements of the process are:

Live birth is driven by a complex suite of morphological, physiological, and genetic changes. Modified from an image by Basile Morin, CC BY

The changes that occur during pregnancy and birthing must be mainly controlled by genetics, and we know that the expression of genes changes during pregnancy in different live-bearing animals.

However, the generality of these changes is less clear. For example, are the same genes used during pregnancy in mammals and fish? Or are similar outcomes driven by entirely different genes?

Thats what we set out to discover in our study, newly published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Queensland and James Cook University.

An animals development is controlled by its genes, its environment, and an interaction between the two.

Not every gene within an animal is always active. Genes are switched on (or expressed) when needed, and then switched off again when no longer needed.

Gene expression levels naturally vary over time as an animal interacts with the environment and undergoes physiological changes, such as those associated with pregnancy. Using a technique called transcriptomics, we can take snapshots of these changes in gene expression as they occur.

To investigate the genetic changes occurring in the uterus during pregnancy in different species, we collected samples or used existing data from six live-bearing animals: the Australian sharpnose shark, three species of Australian lizards, the gray short-tailed opossum, and the brown lab rat.

The spotted skink Niveoscincus ocellatus, sampled in our study, gives birth to live young. Charles Foster, Author provided

Sampling this wide range of animals allowed us to determine whether the same gene expression changes occur during pregnancy across species in which live birth evolved independently.

Our work is the first quantitative study into the genetic basis of live birth at such a broad evolutionary scale.

We expected to find many of the same genes used during pregnancy to support the growth and survival of embryos in each of the live-bearing species we sampled.

This hypothesis seemed logical, given the many similarities in anatomical changes during pregnancy across live-bearing vertebrates, along with qualitative findings from previous research.

Instead, we found there was no one set of live-bearing genes utilised during pregnancy across our sampled range of animals. In other words, evolution has converged on similar functions for successful pregnancy but those functions have been achieved by recruiting different groups of genes.

Despite not being what we expected, this finding also makes sense. Different animal lineages may have different toolboxes of genes to draw from, due to their unique evolutionary histories.

A genetic toolbox can be thought of as a broad class of genes that perform similar basic functions. Over the long timescales of evolution, different genes from this ancestral toolbox can be recruited to carry out the same physiological functions in different animals.

Like humans, the Australian sharpnose shark transports nutrients to developing embryos via a placenta. Camilla Whittington, Author provided

For example, developing babies require access to a supply of amino acids for successful development. In many species these amino acids are transported from the mother to the fetus across the placenta via solute carrier genes.

We identified more than 75 different solute carrier genes in the combined genetic toolbox of our study species. However, each species recruited different genes from the toolbox to transport amino acids during pregnancy.

Our findings force us to rethink the idea that the cross-species similarities in live birth are controlled by the same genetic changes.

We can also consider our results in the context of Goulds thought experiment about replaying the tape of life.

Was the evolution of live birth predictable? It depends on how you look at it.

Large-scale similarities, such as the anatomy and functions of the uterus, seem predictable. They appear to have evolved repeatedly to solve the biophysical challenges of successful pregnancy.

However, our results show this predictability does not extend to the underlying genes.

Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, UNSW Sydney; Camilla Whittington, Senior lecturer, University of Sydney, and James Van Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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There's more than one way to grow a baby - UNSW Newsroom

Physiology

Is Your Overtraining Syndrome Really Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport? – iRunFar

Is your overtraining syndrome really relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S)?

Almost a year ago, I received an email with a subject line asking almost this same question. The message was about a paper co-authored by two of my favorite exercise physiology researchers, Trent Stellingwerff and Ida A. Heikura.My interest was piqued.

Ive shared my personal struggles with overtraining syndrome on iRunFar, and its still the article I get the most emails about. Most often I hear from athletes looking for advice as they struggle with chronic fatigue.

Its hard to help because there are not a lot of satisfying answers yet. So, when another possible mechanism for why you and your running performance might be out of sorts comes along, its a good thing for us to explore.

In this article, well do just that. Well evaluate the similarities between overtraining syndrome and relative energy deficiency in sport, discuss why the similarities might lead to a misdiagnosis of overtraining syndrome, why getting a correct diagnosis is important, and what athletes and their support systems should watch for based on this new information.

Keely Henninger on her way to winning the 2022 Gorge Waterfalls 50k a few years after recovering from low energy availability and relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S). Photo: Steven Mortinson

Overtraining syndrome (OTS) is not a verb; you cannot actively do it. Its a noun, the destination on a continuum of training stress. We need some training stress to make physiological adaptations and improve our fitness, but we get into trouble when we pair these stresses with inadequate rest.

The definitions set forth over the past decade have helped to elucidate the different stops along the overtraining continuum (2).

Overreaching is akin to positive training stress, but a little bigger. Periodically, you can utilize overreaching in a training camp or on a long weekend that, when backed up with adequate rest, can have large positive impacts on performance.

However, if you continue to overreach, without stepping off the gas, you can end up in a place of non-functional overreaching. This is where you are no longer positively adapting to the stress. If you continue to press the gas pedal, you are headed toward the destination of OTS. The difference between non-functional overreaching and OTS is the timeframe of impaired performance, with the former lasting weeks and the latter months.

The outcome of OTS is a combination of factors that decrease performance and impact overall health, including (1):

The idea of the overtraining continuum is that, as overreaching progresses to non-functional overreaching and possibly to overtraining syndrome (OTS), you have an increase in fatigue and severity of symptoms. Image: Halson, S. L., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2004). Does Overtraining Exist? Sports Medicine,34(14), 967-981. doi:10.2165/00007256-200434140-00003 (6)

First introduced by the International Olympic Committee in 2014 and further updated in 2018, relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) has gotten a lot of attention in the endurance world of late in an effort to educate athletes and their support systems about the risks of intentionally or unintentionally under fueling (3, 4).

What the introduction of RED-S did was to create a larger umbrella term that took into account the already defined female athlete triad (disordered eating, loss of normal menstruation, and bone-density issues) and added all the other ways low energy availability impacts physiological function, health, and performance, which recognized that all athletes are susceptible to RED-S regardless of gender.

The major underpinning of RED-S is chronically poor energy availability. While this is sometimes intentional (disordered eating), we want to stress that we take part in a sport where it can be hard to meet our high energy demands day after day. If you combine inadequate energy intake with high exercise energy expenditure, you have a recipe for disaster.

I reached out to friend and professional runner Keely Henninger to discuss her experience with low energy availability and RED-S that culminated in a major bone stress injury.

Keely Henninger. Photo: Luke Webster

iRunFar: After an incredible 2018 season, in 2019 you sustained a sacral stress fracture. Tell us about that experience.

Keely Henninger:I was ignoring the warning signs my body was putting out for years. My 2018 season looked good on paper, but I was constantly battling highs and lows, overtraining, and under-fueling.

When I started training for 2019, my body was still not cooperating. Id wake up extremely tired and dreaded going for a run but for a while, I pushed on. When I finally had to stop due to the sacral stress fracture, I felt relieved. I finally had a reason to stop, and my body and mind thanked me.

The injury forced me to take a holistic view of my training, to acknowledge that I had been doing a lot wrong, and reprioritize training and recovery. I wish I could say I nailed the balance as soon as my injury healed, but it took years of slowly adjusting to get to a spot where I have balance, prioritize recovery, and run for the right reasons.

iRunFar: Why do you think its hard for athletes to identify low energy availability and/or RED-S when in the throes of it?

Henninger:We are in this sport because we are extremely good at enduring pain and pushing our bodies to their limits. However, there is a level of suffering that is beneficial and a level that is not. We need to be able to recognize [the issues that arent beneficial to our health, like] changes in behavior, persistent fatigue, a lack of menstrual cycle (for those who menstruate), a lack of libido (for everyone), and a lack of morning erection (for those who should have one).

For a while losing your period was viewed as normal and a badge of honor in endurance running. We didnt view this as a warning sign that we were training too hard, but instead that we were training hard enough. As this narrative changes, I hope that more athletes will be able to identify unhealthy patterns and signals before it turns into a big-bone injury and that they will learn to slow down before they are forced to stop.

iRunFar: What do you wish you could tell the Keely of 2018 and 2019?

Henninger:You dont have to be constantly suffering to be the best runner you can be. We can feel good during workouts, have energy for a life outside of training, and fuel so that we recover and perform to our potential. This doesnt make us less of an athlete.

We suffer enough during the big races and big days out on the trails, we dont have to make our lives harder by making all aspects of training a test of attrition. If we treat ourselves with respect, then we will be able to reach our potential. If we constantly beat ourselves down and demand more, then we may break before we ever reach it.

What Keely experienced, and what so many other athletes have experienced, is not dissimilar from OTS in part because this chronic stress in this case from under-recovery spurred by inadequate energy intake also creates a disruption in biochemical, endocrine, and sex hormones.

Low energy availability can present from different root causes, including those which are unintentional or intentional (disordered eating). However, its an imbalance between dietary energy intake and the amount of energy you need daily to support normal functions and exercise. Being in a chronic state of low energy availability ultimately leads to relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) which encompasses not only the female athlete triad but all other deficits of that state regardless of gender. Image: Sim, A., & Burns, S.F. (2021). Review: questionnaires as measures for low energy availability and relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) in athletes. Journal of Eating Disorders, 9. (5)

So, what are the main differences between OTS and RED-S? Unlike in OTS, RED-S has a sizable negative impact on bone health, including decreased bone mineral density and an increased risk for bone stress injuries like stress fractures and stress reactions (1).

The second difference is that OTS causes central nervous system dysfunction, while RED-S imparts that plus sex hormone dysfunction.

While OTS and RED-S share many commonalities in symptoms all but bone health because of under-recovery, they are not the same condition and shouldnt be treated as such. How do you know which path to go down when looking for answers?

Either path is a little bit of an investigation. This is because both OTS and RED-S are identified by a diagnosis of exclusion. Despite years of trying, both lack a validated universal identifier, something that says, Yes, you have OTS, or, Yes, you have RED-S.

Traditionally, for OTS this has meant ruling out any natural diseases (thyroid disease or other autoimmune conditions, celiac disease, and more), infections (Lyme disease, mononucleosis, and more), and deficiencies like anemia, and allergies. This list has now grown to rule out other dietary deficiencies, including dietary caloric restriction, unintended inadequate energy intake, and insufficient carbohydrate and/or protein intake. Essentially, you now must rule out low energy availability and/or RED-S to meet the diagnosis of exclusion for OTS (1).

For me, this was a lightbulb moment and highlights the importance of getting an accurate diagnosis early. Understanding which road to head down for appropriate recommendations and prescriptive behavior changes to heal will vary depending on if you are dealing with OTS versus RED-S, and weve been missing low energy availability and/or RED-S in this equation for a long time.

Its long been speculated that only a very small portion of individuals who have been given an OTS diagnosis actually have it, and the review that Stellingwerff and colleagues put together paints this same picture (1). This is largely because low energy availability and RED-S are newer concepts than non-functional overreaching and OTS.

Ive said it before and Ill say it again: its really hard to overtrain, but its really easy to under-recover. And for many, under-recovery likely begins with inadequate fueling. This is a great example of how new research creates new insight.

It would be easy to say that overtraining syndrome (OTS) and relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) are linked by looking at this Venn diagram. However, one major difference is that RED-S is a state of chronic low energy availability due to energy intake not meeting your daily needs. While the female athlete triad overlaps with RED-S due to menstrual irregularities and poor bone health, RED-S can impact athletes regardless of gender. Image: iRunFar/Corrine Malcolm

What can you do if you are worried you might fall into one of these two camps? When battling chronic fatigue and a falloff in athletic performance, lean into your support system. Both OTS and RED-S are multifactorial and should be treated with medical, nutritional, psychological, and physiological approaches.

Additionally, one of the most critical findings from the review article was that there was a need for increased awareness among coaches, physicians, physical therapists, and other sports practitioners of the signs and symptoms of OTS and RED-S for early diagnosis and treatment.

Here are the most important points for athletes and their support system to consider:

Be Aware of Menstruation Irregularities

If you are a person who menstruates and are experiencing amenorrhea (absence of your normal cycle) or oligomenorrhea (frequent irregular cycles), there is a good chance your energy intake doesnt meet your energy expenditure.This is a good time to tag in your primary care provider and registered dietitian to evaluate hormonal disturbances and energy availability. This is most likely a result of low energy availability or RED-S, not OTS.

Watch for Bone Stress Injuries

If you have found yourself with a bone stress injury, particularly a big bone like your femur, pelvis, or sacrum (as these are less prone to straightforward overuse injuries), its again time to tag in the professionals.As we mentioned earlier, bone stress injuries are the one symptom that falls squarely in the low energy availability and RED-S camp, as they negatively impact bone mineral density.

Rule Out Natural Diseases

If you are struggling with any of the other symptoms that build off chronic fatigue and impaired performance, tagging in your primary care provider and a registered dietitian is a good first step. They can help rule out any natural diseases or infections and start to evaluate if you are matching your energy intake needs and exercise energy expenditure throughout different phases of your training cycle. This needs to include not only matching your general energy intake needs but also making sure you are taking in adequate carbohydrates and protein.

Discuss Training Levels While Recovering

While training can continue with low energy availability and RED-S, working closely with your coach and medical team to make sure that you are limiting additional stress in order to start to regain balance is important. This likely means a small scaling down of training while increasing daily caloric intake.

For non-functional overreaching or OTS, a period of complete rest is advised. This will vary greatly depending on the individual, but for non-functional overreaching, it could be weeks and for OTS this could be months to years.

This rest should be followed by a gradual rebuild that includes the use of shorter double runs rather than longer single runs to manage stress during the ramp-up to normal volume. This might include steps forward and backward and thats why the next piece is so important!

Consider Your Psychological Wellbeing

What about the psychological component? While you may lean heavily into your medical and nutritional support systems, leaning into your therapist and other supports like your coach and family are also critically important during this time.

Being injured yes, OTS and RED-S are metabolic injuries is incredibly hard on a psychological level, and having help to lean on and work through this time is critical. Your mental health is as important as your physical health.

This theoretical framework highlights the responsibilities and accountabilities of a multifactorial (medical, nutrition, psychology, and physiology) approach for athletes and their support systems to prevent, diagnose, and treat overtraining syndrome (OTS) and relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S). Image: Stellingwerff, T., Heikura, A. I., Meeusen, R., Bermon, S., Seiler, S., Mountjoy, L. M., Burke, M. L. (2021). Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDS): Shared Pathways, Symptoms and Complexities. Sports Medicine https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-021-01491-0 (1)

Please share your experiences with overtraining syndrome or relative energy deficiency in sport. If you feel comfortable, wed love to hear about your symptoms, diagnosis process, and how you healed from these injuries. Thanks!

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Is Your Overtraining Syndrome Really Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport? - iRunFar

Physiology

ARCS San Diego 2022 Scientist of the Year Virtual Event – KPBS

Each year ARCS San Diego, a local non-profit led entirely by women, hosts a Scientist of the Year fundraiser, which honors a preeminent local scientist. This years honoree, Dr. Ardem Patapoutian, is a professor of neuroscience at Scripps Research and winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Date | Sunday, April 24 (4:00-5:15 pm PDT)

Location | Virtual Weblink

Register here! Free Event Registration required

All funds raised at this event will go towards financial awards to support ARCS Scholars who make outstanding contributions to advance science and keep America competitive on the global stage, which is the ARCS mission.

As indicated by its name Achievement Rewards for College Scientists ARCS provides financial awards to promising graduate students who are pursuing degrees in science, engineering and medical research. Since its inception in 1985, the San Diego Chapter of ARCS has given more than $11.3 million to support graduate students at four local institutions: UC San Diego, SDSU, USD, and Scripps Research.

For further information on this event and/or to register, go to: https://san-diego.arcsfoundation.org/2022-scientist-year-virtual-event

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ARCS San Diego 2022 Scientist of the Year Virtual Event - KPBS

Physiology

The inspiring women who have won the Nobel Prize – msnNOW

Ever since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, the award has been considered one of the highest honors an individual can receive. Awards are given out each year, in the categories of physics, chemistry, "physiology or medicine," literature, peace, and economics (one per category). The Nobel Foundation describes the medal as an award given to those who ... have conferred the greatest benefit to Mankind. Since 1901, there have been more than 900 recipients of this prestigious honor, but out of those 900-plus Nobel Laureates, only 58 have been women. Thankfully, this number is rising quicker and quicker as time goes on, and more and more of the incredible women who shape our world for the better are getting the recognition they deserve.

In this gallery, lets look back on some of the wonderful women who have become Nobel Laureates.

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The inspiring women who have won the Nobel Prize - msnNOW